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English22/09/2019

SERBS SENTENCED TO ALMOST 4,000 YEARS IN PRISON

VLASENICA, SEPTEMBER, 22 /SRNA/ - Serbs convicted at The Hague tribunal and the Court of BiH have been sentenced to almost 4,000 years in prison, with six life sentences, with a very small percentage of convictions for crimes against the Serb people, and politics is one that affects the work of the judiciary, pointed out in Vlasenica at the conference on the work of judicial institutions and the prosecution of war crimes.

Representative of the Republican Center for Research of War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons Viktor Nuždić has pointed out to the devastating fact that only 13 percent of the sentences for crimes against the Serb people before the Court of BiH were of the total sentencing in that judicial institution.

Nuždić has stressed that the Serbs are the most charged with war crimes and that they were given the highest sentences.

He has considered that it is devastating that almost 4,000 years in prison have been sentenced to Serbs before the BiH judicial authorities and The Hague Tribunal, with six life sentences, and he stressed that the judiciary is very zealously when it comes to prosecuting Serbs.

"The Republic Center has recognized this problem and will actively participate in all activities to find solutions and assist the accused, cooperating with individual prosecutors in relation to the processing of crimes involving Serb victims", Nuždić said at the opening of the conference.

Attorney Goran Petronijević, a member of the defense team of former Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadžić, has told Srna that politics exclusively affects the work of judicial institutions and the prosecution of war crimes cases, and said that someone misinterpreted the term criminal prosecution policy.

"Criminal prosecution policy means defining it in accordance with the law and the constitution, not in relation to current daily and long-term political matters. Unfortunately, this has proved to be true in The Hague as well as in these tribunals in the region", Petronijević said.

The lawyer Miodrag Stojanović has told Srna that the judiciary, as well as in other segments of society, has experienced a decline in quality and moral values, and stressed that the best and the most qualified - investigators, prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers – should work on war crimes cases.

Republika Srpska Interior Ministry Inspector for Investigation of War Crimes Simo Tuševljak told Srna that, when it comes to Serb victims, is obviously too late to prosecute of war crimes.

"If we look at the strategy adopted by the Council of Ministers and the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, you will see that all the crimes which were in the priority and that had to be prosecuted for seven years, when it comes to Bosniaks and Croats as perpetrators and Serbs victims, are not prosecuted and brought to the end", says Tuševljak.

He has pointed out to the necessity of providing assistance to witnesses in the testimony process, and stressed that someone in Srpska must take responsibility and establish a service which will exclusively deal with providing assistance to witnesses.

Today's gathering in Vlasnica was organized by the regional office of the Republican Center for Research of War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons. /end/bo